Fixing a 'Recompile with -fPIC' Error in MySQL

I run my web servers by compiling the most important components from source code, which makes it possible for me to add security fixes more quickly and fine-tune my installations of Apache, MySQL and PHP. While compiling the new release PHP 5.2.8 this weekend, the make process failed with this error:

/usr/bin/ld: /usr/mysql/lib/mysql/libz.a(compress.o): relocation R_X86_64_32 against 'a local symbol' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC
/usr/mysql/lib/mysql/libz.a: could not read symbols: Bad value

Naturally, I had absolutely no idea what this meant.

The file libz.a is part of the Zlib compression library, which apparently is included in MySQL 5.0. A Google search for the error message uncovered a bunch of people suffering the same problem I encountered when compiling programs on Linux. The best explanation I found was a Gentoo Linux page on how to fix -fPIC errors. Unfortunately, none of Gentoo's tips worked for me.

Through trial and error (and error and error), I finally solved the problem by compiling a new copy of Zlib and specifying that it create a Unix shared library using the -s option:

./configure --prefix=/usr/zlib -s

Next, I added the option --with-zlib-dir=/usr/zlib when running configure to prepare PHP for installation. This didn't work until I figured out one last obstacle -- the Zlib option must be placed before the --with-mysql option. Otherwise, PHP tries to use the copy of Zlib included with MySQL.

Everything now compiles and runs successfully. So until the next time I try to install something, I can return my ego to its upright position. My new Linux technique is unstoppable.

Mysql · Php · Linux · 2008/12/14 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

New Word: Cupertino

There's a new meaning for the word cupertino that has nothing to do with the city in California, according to the etymology site World Wide Words. A cupertino is any word that's produced when a lazy editor accepts spellcheck suggestions without reviewing them, as in this press release:

In August, nGenera announced version 8.1 of its Talisma Knowledgebase, saying the release added enchantments to its search functionality through an OEM agreement with enterprise search vendor Autonomy.

The name comes from Microsoft Word 97's suggestion that Cupertino is the proper spelling of co-operation. "European writers who omitted the hyphen from co-operation (the standard form in British English) found that their automated checkers were turning it into Cupertino," Michael Quinlan writes.

In July, the Christian media site OneNewsNow turned the sprinter Tyson Gay into a human cupertino. In an attempt to reclaim the word "gay," for purposes as yet unknown, the site was automatically replacing it with "homosexual" in news stories. This resulted in several articles about the accomplishments of Tyson Homosexual, one of the fastest men alive. "He was ahead of American Tyson Homosexual from the get-go and beat Homosexual easily," one story states.

Jargon · 2008/12/13 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Finding Updated Feeds with Simple Update Protocol

FriendFeed is working on Simple Update Protocol (SUP), a means of discovering when RSS and Atom feeds on a particular service have been updated without checking all of the individual feeds. Feeds indicate that their updates can be tracked with SUP by adding a new link tag, as in this example from an Atom feed:

The rel attribute identifies an ID for the feed, which is called its SUP-ID. The href attribute contains a URL that uses JSON to identify updated feeds by their SUP-IDs. There's also a type attribute that contains "application/json" to indicate the content type at the linked resource.

Developer Paul Bucheit makes the case for the protocol on FriendFeed's blog. "[O]ur servers now download millions of feeds from over 43 services every hour," he writes. "One of the limitations of this approach is that it is difficult to get updates from services quickly without FriendFeed's crawler overloading other sites' servers with update checks."

My first take on the idea is that defining a relationship with a URI is too different than standard link relationships in HTML, which employ simple words like "previous", "next", and "alternate". When new relationships have been introduced, they follow this convention, as Google did when it proposed nofollow.

Also, neither RSS 1.0 nor RSS 2.0 allow more than one link tag in a feed, so the SUP tag only would be valid in Atom feeds.

Both of these concerns could be addressed by identifying the SUP provider with a new namespace, as in this hypothetical example:

<rss xmlns:sup="http://friendfeed.com/api/sup/">
<channel>
<sup:provider href="http://friendfeed.com/api/sup.json#53924729" type="application/json" />
...

Six Apart has offered an alternate solution that seems more likely to work for large hosting sites and constant feed-checking services like FriendFeed. The company produces an update stream of Atom data indicating an update on any of the thousands of TypePad or Vox blogs.

Another potential solution would be to borrow the technique used by Radio UserLand blogs to identify a list of recently updated sites: Add a category tag to the feed with the value "rssUpdates" and a domain attribute with the URI of XML data containing the list:

<category domain="http://rpc.weblogs.com/shortChanges.xml">rssUpdates>/category>

The XML data is in the weblog changes format used by Weblogs.Com.

Rss · Programming · 2008/12/06 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Streamline Your Consolidated Resources

20-sided die I love the thick coat of BS that Wizards of the Coast President Greg Leeds laid down to justify the layoffs this week of around 20 employees, including longtime Dungeons & Dragons game designers Jonathan Tweet and Dave Noonan:

Consolidating internal resources coupled with improved outsourcing allows us to gain efficiencies in executing against our major digital initiatives Magic Online and D&D Insider. Wizards of the Coast is well positioned to maximize future opportunities, including further brand development on digital platforms. The result of this consolidation is a more streamlined approach to driving core brands.

If your player character has mastered the Comprehend Language ritual, which requires a successful Arcana check, he can understand corporate executive gibberish for 24 hours, according to page 302 of the Player's Handbook. On a check of 35 or higher, he can even speak it.

Gaming · Business · 2008/12/05 · Comment · Link

Web Hosting Provider Alpha Red Files for Bankruptcy

While looking through some records in a bankruptcy database, I found an item that hasn't hit the news yet: The web hosting provider Alpha Red Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday in the Southern District of Texas, claiming more than $10 million in liabilities.

Alpha Red, a hosting provider with two datacenters in Houston that hosts numerous adult-content sites and other high-bandwidth customers, has been in legal trouble in recent months. On Sept. 23, Alpha Red chief executive officer James Reed McCreary IV and the company were sued by Washington state Attorney General Robert McKenna, who accused McCreary of selling "scareware," software that made Windows XP users falsely believe that their registry had become "damaged and corrupted." The suit claims that through another company he controlled, Branch Software Inc., McCreary sold Registry Cleaner XP software for $39.95 that was marketed by exploiting the Windows Messenger Service with Internet-transmitted messages that made misleading "Critical Error Message!" dialog boxes appear on user computers.

"Contrary to the representation implied by Defendants' message, the user's computer has not already been tested or examined to determine the presence of errors, damage or corruption," the suit states. "Through alarmist language seemingly delivered by a trusted source, Defendants misrepresent the extent to which installing the software is necessary for repair of the computer for proper operation."

The "Critical Error" messages were sent repeatedly to users. McKenna cites one user who allegedly received 214 such dialogs in a 24-hour period. Five causes of action were filed alleging violations of the Computer Spyware Act and unfair and deceptive trade practices.

"We won't tolerate the use of alarmist warnings or deceptive 'free scans' to trick consumers into buying software to fix a problem that doesn't even exist," McKenna said in a press release.

The top 20 debtors in the bankruptcy are owed more than $4.57 million, including $826,000 to the IRS. McCreary owns 82 percent of Alpha Red's common stock, according to the bankruptcy filing.

A Texas state court removed McCreary from management on Oct. 23 and appointed a receiver to run the company, responding to a court action by MegaUpload Ltd., a file-upload site based in Hong Kong that was an Alpha Red customer.

Although a Chapter 11 bankruptcy is designed for companies to reorganize and settle debts to continue operations, the filing includes this statement by receiver Douglas Brickley: "[T]he Receiver deems it to be in the best interests of the Company to file a bankruptcy petition ... for the purposes of winding up the Company's business affairs, liquidating the Company's assets and distributing payment to creditors."

Some Alpha Red customers have been discussing their difficulties with the company for several months on the Web Hosting Talk forum. Customers who sent servers to Alpha Red facilities in Houston posted that they have been unable to get them back. "The place is locked down and no one answering the phone/mails etc.," one customer complained in October. "Got 10 servers stucked inside and cant do anything."

Business · 2008/12/05 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Review: 'The Spy Who Came for Christmas' by David Morrell

I don't read many thrillers, but I asked to review David Morrell's The Spy Who Came for Christmas after it was advertised recently on the Drudge Retort. I'm a sucker for holidaymas-themed books and films, and the title got my attention with its evocation of John le Carre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

Morrell, a prolific thriller author who created Rambo in 1972's First Blood, centers his new book on Kagan, an American spy who has committed an escalating serious of heinous acts while working undercover with Russian mobsters in the U.S. When he's tasked with kidnapping the newborn son of an inspirational Palestinean leader to derail Middle East peace, he flees with the child into the crowd of celebrants on Santa Fe's Canyon Road during the annual art walk on Christmas Eve, ending up in the home of a woman who's packing her bags after being punched by her alcoholic husband. Together, the spy, the woman, her 12-year-old son and the infant "child of peace" -- as he's grandiosely described -- hunker down and prepare for a siege as three mobsters and the husband lurk outside.

The plot's tense and engaging, but the novel's told through so much dialogue it feels like it would rather be a screenplay (six of Morrell's books have been made into films). While waiting for the mobsters he betrayed to storm the house and take back the infant, Kagan entertains the family with his theory that the three Wise Men, the Magi, were actually Persian spies trying to destabilize King Herod's government in Israel with false tales of a savior:

"The Magi were so convincing that Herod didn't realize who his true enemies were. They became what intelligent experts call double agents: spies pretending to work for one side when they're actually working for the other. ... But something remarkable happened in Bethlehem, something that changed everything. ... They began to believe that the disinformation they'd given Herod was in fact the truth."

Though Kagan's Christmas story is rationalized as an effort to keep the family from freaking out, by the end of the book it's clear he's an incorrigible blabbermouth, an amusing trait to find in a battle-scarred intelligence operative.

Morrell's back-of-book bio makes him sound like a figure out of his own novels:

[H]e is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School for wilderness survival as well as the G. Gordon Liddy Academy of Corporate Security. ... He has been trained in firearms, hostage negotiation, assuming identities, executive protection and offensive/defensive driving, among numerous other action skills ...

The best part about The Spy Who Came for Christmas is Morrell's choice of setting, which makes a holiday vacation to Santa Fe sound like a pretty good idea, once all the spies and terrorists have cleared out.

Credit: The photo of Santa Fe's Canyon Road was taken by CelebrateGreatness and is available under a Creative Commons license.

Books · 2008/12/04 · 1 COMMENT · Link

'Let Us View Candy Land as a Mathematical Entity'

Game designer Greg Costikyan has written a detailed analysis of why Candy Land succeeds as a game in spite of the fact that winning the game is completely random and requires no strategy of any kind:

There are those who criticize Candy Land as being jejune and ultimately futile, since the nature of its rules construct and the (non-existent) emergent complexity it supports is utterly unsusceptible to any sort of rational analysis, or indeed, choice of player strategy.
... let us view Candy Land as a mathematical entity. It is very nearly a Markov chain, a stochastic process in which, given the current state, future states are independent of past states. (It would be a pure Markov chain if the deck were shuffled after each play; instead, it is a crippled Markov chain coupled to a push-pop stack.) As such, it is a metaphorical representation of the fundamental ideology of the United States; the past is no constraint on the future, and each individual should strive resolutely for personal advance despite whatever the past may hold.

Games · 2008/12/02 · 2 COMMENTS · Link